Publishing and Scholarly Communication: Book Publishing

There are several ways to publish content from your thesis; you can publish articles or book chapters based on different parts of your research, or you can develop your thesis into a book. If you want to publish a book based on your thesis, here are some things to consider:

• If you are approached by a publisher about publishing your thesis, please proceed with caution and investigate the publisher thoroughly.
• You will need to edit and restructure your thesis to make it suitable for publication as a book. Consider your expected audience and potential publishers when you are adapting your thesis.
• Consult your supervisor or subject librarian for advice about publishers in your subject area.

From Dissertation to Book: Navigating the Publication Process

This is a recording from a panel of experts—an acquisitions editor, a first-time book author, and an author rights expert—about the process of turning a dissertation into a book. Participants heard practical advice about revising a dissertation, writing a book proposal, approaching editors, signing a first contract, and navigating the peer review and publication process.

It was delivered by the UC Berkeley Library Office of Scholarly Communication over Zoom on 22 October 2020.

The current list works on the basis of the numeric classification systems adopted variously by the Norwegian Publication Indicator (NPI), the Danish Bibliometric Research Indicator (BFI), and Finnish Publication Forum (JUFO), where the following numeric indicators apply:

• 3 indicates the very highest level of academic publisher with consistently high global impact
• 2 indicates a leading national or international publisher with very wide reach and strong impact
• 1 indicates important, more specialised publishers producing high quality, peer-reviewed research with significant impact

The list was compiled via a comparison of seven existing publisher lists: UL’s list of prestigious publishers (2014), UCD’s Output-Based Research Support Scheme (ORBSS) list, SENSE, CERES, and the most recent available NPI, BFI, and JUFO lists.1 Input from the four faculties was also considered, as were AHSS’s Disciplinary Research Norms and Arts Practice Outputs documents.

It can also be difficult to find book publishers. The first step in finding a publisher for your book might be to ask your colleagues or ask your library liaison. Other resources include:

•  Member Presses: A listing of over 140 members of the Association of University Presses (AUP). An 8-page grid can help you identify university publishers in your subject area.
• Search WorldCat and other library databases (limit to books), and find out who's publishing books on your topic. Then, review the publisher's website for their policies, etc.
• Check in with your colleagues: find out if any of your colleagues, or other respected researchers in your field, have published books recently. Who did they publish with? If you can, ask them about their experience with the publisher.
• Consult publisher ranking lists: ranking lists, such as those from CERES or SENSE can be useful in evaluating book publishers if they are relevant to your discipline.

Open Access Books: Consider publishing an open access book.

• The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) is a centralised service to support the discovery and dissemination of OA books, with admission criteria that have been developed to verify and accredit the publisher’s peer review and licensing processes.
• OpenEdition is a multilingual, open catalogue designed to give humanities publishers a delivery platform, a revenue stream to support their transition to OA publishing and a host of other benefits. OpenEdition is the umbrella portal for OpenEdition Books (books in the humanities and social sciences – many in French it appears).
• The OAPEN Library is a centralised European platform for OA humanities and social sciences monographs. It contains freely accessible academic books. OAPEN works with publishers to build a quality controlled collection of Open Access books, and provides services for publishers, libraries and research funders in the areas of dissemination, quality assurance and digital preservation.
• The Open Access Directory maintains two lists. One is a list of OA book business models. Another is a list of Publishers of OA books.

Once you have identified potential publishers, you will need to prepare a book proposal. this should include:

• Short description, including the rational for the book and what is distinctive
• Detailed outline with chapter headings
• Material other than text that will appear in the book (images, graphs, supplemental material)
• Evidence that the book will be unique and fill a gap in the market
• Intended readership
• Timeline
• Approximate number of pages

 Here are a few examples of publisher proposal guidelines:

• Wiley's Proposal Checklist
• Harvard University Press Proposal Guidelines
• Oxford University Press Guidelines

Graduate students often receive emails from predatory publishers, such as LAP Lambert Academic Publishing and VDM Verlag. 

See I Sold My Undergraduate Thesis to a Print Content Farm: A trip through the shadowy, surreal world of an academic book mill. 

Remember the main market for Academic books are libraries. Libraries in general only buy from established booksellers. We do not buy from Amazon so any publisher that only sells on Amazon should be investigated thoroughly. 

• Who is the editor -  The best publishers have reputable commissioning editors and go through numerous edits prior to publication
• What is the print run - It is much more expensive to run a second print run than to have a larger first print run.  
• How many review copies - Reviews are an important part of a promotional plan for books. Free copies for reviewers are important for promotion. 
• Is it published in an electronic format - Increasingly libraries are buying books in e-format due to distance learning and space constraints, Consider publishers who support this. 
• How will the book be sold - Libraries do not buy from Amazon. instead they buy through reputable booksellers. 
• Self publishing is not considered reputable for Academic careers